C3Church & Very Special Servants in Ministry

Sommer and Dan running the children's church on Easter Sunday morning.  Their church is growing in the midst of  hardness in Asheville.  As fun and beautiful as Asheville is to visit, spiritually it is tough.  Joel calls it Bohemianville.  I call it a mission field.  Why do weirdo religions gather in beautiful mountain areas? 
If I needed to move east, I would choose Greenville, SC over Asheville just for the spiritual air I think.  Pray for Dan and Sommer.   By the way, Sommer is so excited because she gets her braces off in a couple of weeks.  http://www.c3asheville.com/

Times Have Changed -- The Meaning of Easter Has NOT

I love Easter.  A symbol of  promise, of life and a proof of love.   I love Easter for the God's Great Love reality; but I also love it because it is a time when cold and darkness break forth into light and beauty.    Back in the days when I had a new spring Easter outfit was nice -- but that was long ago.  I loved the waving of palms on Palm Sunday and the Empty Cross on display on Resurrection morning.  I loved the Easter songs, the Easter drama's and the giving and sharing among friends.
Today I live in a community where I don't see Easter bonnets and I attend a church where songs such as "Up From the Grave He Arose" are old fashion while the leadership come dressed in blue jeans and casual shirts.   By trying hard to not be traditional, how well we establish new traditions.

Then there is the issue of Easter baskets.  I did Easter baskets for my kids until they were far 'past grown'  -- the age where I was filling the basket with money or under panties or swimming suits instead of candy.  The Pops insisted "this is the last year" for  years.    Then there were the grandchildren baskets until that last year when grandkids were so big they fought over who saw the egg first-resulting in tears in place of Easter joy.     So now we celebrate happy resurrection day without chocolate bunnies.  And I leave the dying of eggs and baskets to my grown up children. 

However, I'm getting my 'payback' with things I appreciate big time.  April, Elijah, Lily and Rosie knocked on our door this morning to clean out our front flower bed and plant my flowers for me.  I love flowers but it is getting where I do not enjoy the bending/digging part of the work.   So my Easter gift was manual labor.  The girls gathered up the fallen sticks from the trees out of the yard while Ken and Elijah cleaned out the blanket of leaves to find hostas already up and hopefully elephant ears on the way.   April did the cleaning and arranging while planting the wax begonias.   All of this adds much joy to my Resurrection Day celebration.  Thank you sweet husband and dear children.

By the time the weekend celebration is done, I will have attended COTM twice, Covenant Church on line streaming and Asbury United Methodist.  With five Easter services, COTM had it's largest attendance of 17,000 people.  Loud, boisterous, booming songs, an excellent 40 minute sermon about conquering death, and invitation for salvations with a offer to spontaneously come forward  for water baptism by being dunked in temporality erected tanks.  Six hundred people responded to the water and over a hundred and forty children in KOTM gave their lives to Christ.   
At Covenant in Carrollton, the music was of the highest order of worship to God.  The pastor on video, greeted us from the empty tomb and then preached in person.  It was so touching.  Finally, at Asbury, we experience the traditions of our childhood Easter:  bell choir, orchestra, robed choir, magestic traditional Easter songs, candles and Easter lilies.     What a weekend.  Have I convinced anyone that Easter is my favorite holiday?

Resurrection Weekend

The JW were in our neighborhood inviting neighbors to celebrate the death of Jesus with them. We declined in preference of celebrating the birth, death and resurrection of Christ. For the JW there must have been a very big push this year as several others mentioned that they had received the same invitation to celebrate the death of Jesus. I decided that this year we would celebrate in a different fashion. For the first time, we did not do Easter Baskets for the grandkids. I did not dye eggs and offered no Easter Egg hunts.
I decided that was another persons's job. (I've been told by Pops for years that I tend to go overboard.) Well, it does not mean I won't do Eggs or Baskets or family dinners next year or future years, it is just I did not do it this year.
The Tulsa area is rich in Easter celebrations, so Ken and I put our energy into visiting three of those events. It was good for both of us. I've been thinking about the experience all day today and I think I will write a blog just on that experience alone later on. For now, I'll just mention that we went to our COTM service on Good Friday evening. We sat with April and Dave and afterwards, met up with them and Kevin's family at Fuddruckers for dinner together. Ken and I had the Buffalo Burgers. I do believe all of us were very full when we left. Saturday was a beautiful day. I worked up until time to go to our second Resurrection celebration in which we visited a neighborhood church near our home. This morning we went to Ken's happy place .... and I went with him. Today is raining and we are enjoying a quiet afternoon by the fire. There are steaks to grill later on. See what I mean. No traditional ham, no deviled eggs. Just rain outside and warmth inside. It is a good day! We've talked with Joel and Jennifer to learn Joel was preaching twice this morning and Jennifer seems to be having that baby sooner than thought -- within two weeks. And Sommer and Dan were having a quiet day at home this morning. Ava and Carson had opened their Easter Baskets and their day is sunny. Their church was having their Easter service tonight. Praise God that all our children are celebrating the resurrection of our Lord today!